


Odd Bird

by clearascountryair



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Misogyny, also some tentative warnings, attempted suicide, discussion of abuse, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7093861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearascountryair/pseuds/clearascountryair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You are going to be so great, Jemma Josephine Simmons.  Whatever you’re called and whatever you do, you’re going to be amazing. And so, so happy.  It’s going to take time, but you’re going to have the most amazing life.”<br/>"I don’t wanna wait, Mama."</p>
<p>A Jemma Simmons backstory fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odd Bird

**Author's Note:**

> I might change the title, we'll see. 
> 
> Thanks to agentcalliope for being a wonderful beta!

Normally, Doctor Ana Schenck-Simmons took the long way home from the hospital.  “The scenic route,” her husband liked to joke.  In reality, it was no more or less scenic than the more straightforward route, it just took approximately seven minutes longer.  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get home to her family, because she did.  But she worked in pediatrics, pediatric oncology, to be specific, and sometimes she needed those seven extra minutes to unwind, to call her mother, sometimes even to have a quick cry.  And the night before, the twins were asleep by the time she got home, and she had left early that morning when they were still in bed, and she just want to be at home, watching a movie with her kids or reading them stories.  Hell, she’d take breaking up a fight at this point.  So when she got home, she didn’t even wait to finish the song on the radio.  She got out of her car as soon as she parked and let herself in the front door.

And, nothing.  The house was silent, something she knew for a fact her five children were incapable of being.  Alice didn’t even bark.  Quietly, she slipped out of her shoes and tiptoed towards the living room.

Kit, her oldest, was sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table as he went over his university applications.  The twins were curled up on either side of him, Liam with his GameBoy and Jemma completely asleep.  She smiled before walking over and taking the GameBoy, planting a kiss on Liam’s head.

“Mama!”

Ana clucked her tongue.“No GameBoy after six.  You know that.”  She ruffled his hair.  “Where are the others?”

Kit set the application on the table.  “Matty just ran Alice out back, and Dad’s in the garage, talking to Peter.”

Ana raised an eyebrow and stepped around the table to Jemma, softly turning her daughter’s head by the chin.  She couldn’t have been asleep long, Ana reasoned.  There were still tear tracks on her cheeks.  She ran a finger across them, wondering what she and Peter (it was _always_ Peter) had fought about this time.

“Hi, Jemma,” she whispered, kissing the girl’s nose.  Jemma grumbled and turned back, burying her face again in Kit’s arm.

Ana turned to Kit, mouthing “ _What happened?_ ”

Liam leaned forward and grabbed a stack of Post-Its off the table.  Scrawled on top in Kit’s barely legible handwriting was, “ _It’s JJ now._ ”

Ana pursed her lips, eye widening, but kissed Jemma’s head again.  “JJ, baby, Mama’s home.”

Wordlessly, Jemma turned to her mother and wrapped her arms around her neck.  Ana humored her and let out a groan as she lifted her.  “You’re getting too big for me to carry, baby.”

Jemma shook her head.  “No, m’not.”

“Mhm,” Ana mumbled into Jemma’s hair (five-year-olds absolutely still had baby smell, whatever Chris said).  “It’s that big brain of yours.  Am I going to have to put you back in kindergarten so you stay tiny for me?”

Jemma shook her head.  “Nononono!  I gotta beat Matty at the science fair.”

“Ah, of course.”  Ana sat down next to Kit, letting Jemma curl up in her lap.  “So, Little Miss JJ–”

“Doctor,” said both Kit and Liam, with Liam adding “after the ‘miss.’”

“Okay, Little Miss Doctor JJ, why are we changing your name?”

“Because I’m clever,” Jemma responded simply, pulling at her mother’s necklace and holding it up do the light, watching it closely.

“Because you’re clever?”

“Mhm.”

Kit snorted.  “And Pete’s a dick.”

Liam, who had picked up the GameBoy as soon as Ana’s attention had turned to Jemma, immediately echoed him.

Ana let out a sharp yelp of scolding, hitting each of the boys lightly on the knee, but kept pushing forward.  “What did Peter say?”

Jemma appeared preoccupied with the way the light impacted her mother’s necklace, but her soft humming gave away her conscious refusal to talk.  Still, she let out a soft “Oh!” as the light reflected against the far wall.  Ana kissed the top of her head and looked at Kit, who stared at his sister affectionately, taking time to contemplate his response.

“He…acknowledged that he may not end up being the only biologist in this family.”

“Biochemist,” said Jemma, faintly, and Ana could not help but chuckle.

“Biochemist, is it?  Aren’t you too little to even spell that?” she teased.

Immediately, Liam stood up and faced his mother.  “B-I-O-C-H-E-M-I-S-T.”  He sat back down, beaming with pride.

Ana clapped her hands.  “Wow!  Brilliant job, Liam!”  She wrinkled up her nose at him.  “Aren’t you clever!”

Liam grinned.  “And strong!  I kicked Peter!”

“ _Liam_!”

“He said I was stupid and made JJ cry.”

Ana was about to respond, but Kit murmured, “Dad took care of it already.”

Ana nodded, but still said, “We don’t kick.  You know that.”

“Sorry, Mama.”

“Good.  Now, tell me, what did Peter say?”

Kit bit the inside of his lip.  “He may have suggested that no one will care about science done by a girl.”

“He did _not_!”

“Yeah, said that nobody wants to read about Jemma Simmons, because Jemma’s just a little girl.  We, of course, told her that we most certainly want to read about Doctor Jemma Simmons.”  He smiled and tickled Jemma’s foot, but she kicked him away.  “It’s my fault, in part.  She came and asked me what people do if they don’t want people to know their gender based on their name.  I told her they used their initials.  Would have said something else if I had known why she was asking.”  

Ana leaning over and kissed his cheek.  “You didn’t do anything wrong, darling.”  She wrapped her arms tighter around Jemma.  Of her five children, only Liam didn’t display an affinity for science (frankly, he downright detested it), and Ana had always know that being a girl in a man’s world would effect Jemma.  She just thought she’d have more than five years before she had to confront it.  And, as much as she hated to admit it, she knew that in this one instance, Peter could be right.  How many friends had she had at uni who ended up going by their initials or androgynous nicknames to avoid the extra scrutiny that came with being a woman?  She sighed.  She could not tell her daughter to give in before she had even started fighting, but nor could she lie to her.  She shut her eyes and prepared to speak, but Liam beat her to it.

“Mama,” he asked, “Why does it matter that Jemma’s a girl’s name?”

Jemma’s head jerked away from her mother as she turned to face the boys.  “‘Cause everyone hates girls!” she shrieked, and began sobbing.

In that moment, Ana wanted very much to cry.  They had been to a special seminar once, her and Chris, when the twins weren’t quite two.  It was for parents, the event had advertised, whose children displayed gifts, as they had put it.  “Early genius,” Ana had told Chris, lying in bed one night.  “There’s a clinical term for it.”  The man who had organized the event began by talking about the difficulties parents might face.  It could be hard, he had said, even terrifying, when your child can intellectually comprehend information that they’re not yet emotionally capable of handling.

“Oh, Jemma.”  Ana stood again, pulling Jemma back against her and letting the girl wrap herself completely around her.  She nodded quickly at Kit, who murmured something to Liam and, taking the younger boy by the hand, left.  She heard the back door open and shut, and someone stomped angrily upstairs as the dog barked.  “Chris,” she called, turning away from Jemma’s ears.  Her husband quickly appeared at the door.  “Will you get Liam ready for bed?”

He nodded grimly and beckoned her forward.  She obliged, smiling sadly as he kissed her, and then Jemma, murmuring, “You are so smart, JJ, no one will give a damn what you’re called.”  With a wink to his wife, he went upstairs.

“Daddy’s right, you know,” Ana whispered into Jemma’s ear.  "Jemma or JJ or whatever else you want to be called, people will listen to you.“

But Jemma continue to cry, her arms tightening around Ana’s neck.  So for several minutes, Ana didn’t say anything.  She paced quietly around the room, holding Jemma tight.  Upstairs, she could hear the boys getting ready for bed, or, rather, the over-exaggerated sounds of Matty and Kit trying to convince Liam that he wasn’t the only one going to bed.  She shut her eyes, rubbing Jemma’s back and trying to figure out what she could possibly say next.  

But then the crying subsided and with a shaky breath, Jemma said, "That’s why Peter hates me. Because I’m a girl.”

Ana shook her head.  "No!  No, no, no!“  She kissed Jemma’s forehead.  "Peter doesn’t hate you.”

“Yes!  He does!”

“He gets angry at you, JJ.  And we have to work on it.  But he doesn’t hate you, sweetie.  He just…hates competition.”  She gave Jemma a weak smile.   “He doesn’t like it when you help him with his homework because he doesn’t like that he’s not the best at everything.”

“But I just want to help!  Because accepting help is how we learn.”

Ana chuckled.  "Did Daddy teach you that?“  Jemma nodded.  "Well, Daddy’s right on that.  But remember that Peter is a lot bigger than you.”

“Ten years.”

“Yeah, ten whole years.  So he doesn’t like how you learned in five years what took him fifteen.”

Ana tried to smile as Jemma mulled over her words.  She tried so hard, she really did, to not put her children in competition with each other.  It was hard, so incredibly hard, but she refused to have any of her children thinking they were better than any of the others.  The fact that her fifth child by age would be her third in schooling was just a fact, just the way things were.  Something accepted but seldom discussed.

But Peter didn’t see him that.  He never had.  In his mind, Jemma had been his biggest challenger since she could barely speak.  She had been endlessly curious, remembering every fact she was told and, even more, learning how to analyze them.  She hadn’t even turn three the first time she had corrected Peter’s homework.  And Peter had never taken it well.  So Ana and Chris told themselves that he didn’t like competition, that he didn’t like sharing his attention, or not being the only one to skip years in school, that he didn’t like not being the smartest.  Most of the time, it was enough.

Ana sat back down and Jemma looked up at her, eyes wide and glassy.  "If I don’t help, will it be different?“

Ana bit the inside of her lip.  "I hope so.”

“He said I don’t have friends,” Jemma grumbled, sticking her thumb in her mouth. “He said I’m the kind of smart no one likes.”

“Well, that’s plain false and you know it.  You’ve got Sophie and–”

“She doesn’t count.  She’s Liam’s friend.  I’m just around.”

To that, Ana didn’t know how to respond.  She had always known that making friends would be hard for Jemma than the rest of her children.  Being in school with classmates who were four years older than her couldn’t have been easy.  The different between five and nine was so dramatic.  But in every other class they had tried, she had been bored, disruptive, even, in her attempts to find challenges in class.  So they did what she asked and moved her ahead and let her love learning.  It came with a cost, but they had come to realize that it didn’t matter where she was.  With children her age, she isolated herself, unable to find things in common.  With her classmates, she was just the baby who had wandered into the wrong room.

“You are going to be so great, Jemma Josephine Simmons.  Whatever you’re called and whatever you do, you’re going to be amazing. And so, so happy.  It’s going to take time, but you’re going to have the most amazing life.”

Jemma looked up at her and, for a moment, Ana couldn’t believe the girl in her lap was only five.  "I don’t wanna wait, Mama.“

But as to how to resolve that, Ana had no answer.  So she smiled and kissed her daughter, grabbing her sides.  "I guess we’ll have to figure it out.  But first, I think someone needs a bath.”  She tickled Jemma’s sides and Jemma squealed and Ana told herself it would be okay.


End file.
